CD120 G.R. No.

L-27930

AURORA A. ANAYA, plaintiff-appellant,

vs.
FERNANDO O. PALAROAN, defendant-appellee.

FACTS:

● Defendant Fernando filed an action for annulment of the marriage on 7 January 1954 on the
ground that his consent was obtained through force and intimidation.
● Aurora’s counterclaim is that Fernando divulged into her several months before their marriage
that he had pre-marital relationship with a close relative of his. It wrecked their marriage before it
hardly commenced.
● She constituted it as a ‘Fraud’ in obtaining her consent.
● Aurora prayed for annulment of the marriage and for moral damages.

ISSUE: W/o/N is non-disclosure to a wife by her husband of his pre-marital relationship with
another woman a ground for annulment of marriage?

HELD: NO. is not one of the enumerated circumstances that would constitute a ground for annulment.
and it is further excluded by the last paragraph of the article, providing that "no other misrepresentation or
deceit as to ... chastity" shall give ground for an action to annul a marriage. While a woman may detest
such non-disclosure of premarital lewdness or feel having been thereby cheated into giving her consent to
the marriage, nevertheless the law does not assuage her grief after her consent was solemnly given, for
upon marriage she entered into an institution in which society, and not herself alone, is interested. The
lawmaker's intent being plain, the Court's duty is to give effect to the same, whether it agrees with the rule
or not.

DOCTRINE: ART. 85. A marriage may be annulled for any of the following causes, existing at the time
of the marriage:

(4) That the consent of either party was obtained by fraud, unless such party afterwards, with full
knowledge of the facts constituting the fraud, freely cohabited with the other as her husband or his wife,
as the case may be;

This fraud, as vice of consent, is limited exclusively by law to those kinds or species of fraud enumerated
in Article 86, as follows:

ART. 86. Any of the following circumstances shall constitute fraud referred to in number 4 of the
preceding article:

(1) Misrepresentation as to the identity of one of the contracting parties;

(2) Non-disclosure of the previous conviction of the other party of a crime involving moral turpitude, and
the penalty imposed was imprisonment for two years or more;

(3) Concealment by the wife of the fact that at the time of the marriage, she was pregnant by a man other
than her husband.

No other misrepresentation or deceit as to character, rank, fortune or chastity shall constitute such fraud
as will give grounds for action for the annulment of marriage.